Google Meet is working on introducing some new features that are focused on providing a better experience for educators and school students. The company claims that more than 140 million educators and students now use G Suite for Education worldwide. The new features will help educators improve moderation and engagement in remote or hybrid learning environments.
In order to keep meetings safer, the company has introduced new moderation features for G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education users. These new features will give educators more control over how to run their virtual classes. Google claims the feature will start rolling out to respective subscribers later this year.
When someone asks to join a meeting, they won’t be able to ask again after being ejected from a meeting, and the request will no longer show up after a moderator rejects it twice.
Moderators will also be able to end the meeting for all participants, ensuring no students linger after the teacher has left. Anonymous attendees will also be blocked from joining any education meetings by default. However, there will be an option to allow anonymous participants if required by the organisation.
One of the features that has been with Zoom will be coming to Google Meet users. The new update will allow users to blur out their surroundings or replace their background, with presets or uploaded images. Admin will have the controls to disable this functionality.
Other features include, the ability to mute all participants at the same time, disable in-meeting chat for participants, and restrict who can present. The company will provide more details regarding these upcoming features before the official launch.
G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education users will get a new hand raising feature to make meetings flow more smoothly and an integrated collaborative whiteboard to help teachers and students share their ideas.
The company is also introducing a larger tiled view that will allow up to 49 participants at once on the screen.
Other classroom-centric features include attendance tracking to provide a record of which students joined the class, breakout rooms so educators can split classes into smaller groups, Q&A to provide a way for students to ask questions without disrupting the flow of the class discussion or lesson, and polling to engage students to share their voice.
